There is an ever present demand for the efficient delivery of data packets between and among networked devices. Devices transmitting data packets include, but are not limited to, computers, telephones, local area networks, and wide area networks. The content of the data packets includes, but is not limited to, data signals, voice signals and video signals. Data packet delivery devices, including data packet switches (such as bridges and routers), modems and the like, are used to improve and facilitate the flow of data packets among the devices generating or transmitting the data packets.
Generally, each data packet has a series of frames. Each frame, or group of frames, specifies a certain characteristic of the data packet, such as communication protocol information, destination address, message content, etc. Each frame is also usually a specified number of bits long.
During data packet transmission, certain types of data packets can be selectively identified and specially handled based on attributes found in various frames of each data packet. Such identification of specific types of data packets is generally known as filtering. However, known filtering algorithms require processor intensive computations which may delay the transmission of the data packets and slow the flow of data within the network. Carrying out knowing filtering algorithms can also require a considerable amount of hardware.